Is the Theater really dead?

I took the title of this post from a line in a Simon & Garfunkel song. "The Dangling Conversation." So, don't assume that I am about to make an argument that the American Theater is dead.

That said, allow me to get to the theory of this particular blog entry.

I believe that the American Theater is dead.

Dead, dead, deadski. Dead as a doornail. Dead as disco. Dead as Jacob Marley. Dead. Extinguished. Snuffed out. An ex parrot!

I had this revelation at lunch, an hour or so ago. I was reading a book set in 1942 and it mentioned that the main hero was "walking the streets when the theaters let out and swarmed the streets with people in black overcoats."

Can you imagine such a scene? So many theaters that they're all packed full of people. Happy, fat, sociable, drunk people, paying for comedies, burlesque, variety shows, dramas, historical plays, murder mysteries, musicals, etc. A large metropolitan theater so full of people, bursting at the seams to see these shows. Sold out shows, all the time.

And why not?

There's no tv to compete with. No video games. No DVDs. No Netflix. No movie complex's. No cell phones.

There was, instead, a huge crush of people available, seeking for SOME SORT of entertainment and theater was what they had available for viewing. And so people went. In large groups. Even the common man went. It was as common an activity as you or I going home to watch our Tivos.

And yet here I am. 60 years later, spending night after night in a theater or a rehearsal space, perfecting, rehearsing, teaching this extinct artform. Which we perform for ourselves, because there is no audience anymore. It's very, very rare when a weeknight shows a sold out house in one of the city's many theaters. That wasn't always the way that it was.

Technology and our audiences have moved on from us, and yet, here we are. Still practicing it all centuries after the boom has died. We might as well be working on woodcuttings or dageurrotypes. Or shadow puppet theater. All artforms that have passed away.

I think the future of entertainment is in the internet or on television. That's where I think I should concentrate my energies. Producing another show that is gone 8 weeks after it runs (or shorter) doesn't seem to have any tangible rewards to show for all that work done. Slavishly working to present an entertainment that you nearly have to strongarm audience members to come and enjoy. Is it any wonder that typical audiences for weekend and day shows are seniors?

The Internet, friends. Produce your own shorts or features and post them online. Sell them to a cable channel and develop them as a property. Everything else is catching snowflakes on your tongue and never feeling full.

COB out...